Lincoln closes on reinsurance agreement

January 8, 2019 by
Doug LeDuc

Lincoln National Corp. plans to repurchase up to $500 million of its shares with proceeds from an agreement it completed last month with an Athene Holding Ltd. subsidiary to reinsure about $7.7 billion of in-force fixed and fixed indexed annuity products.

Capital generated from the transaction included a ceding commission paid by Athene combined with the release of capital. Lincoln said it expects the transaction to be accretive to its 2019 earnings per share. Most of the repurchases will be executed through an accelerated share repurchase program.

The company, which does business under the Lincoln Financial Group brand, has its headquarters in Philadelphia and its annuities operations based in Fort Wayne.

“As demonstrated by our record third quarter earnings, we remain focused on executing our business strategy, which includes manufacturing and distributing high-quality products,” Dennis Glass, Lincoln’s president and CEO, said in a statement.